Wild Geese II

Wild Geese II (1985)

They're back in the most spectacular rescue mission ever filmed!

A group of mercenaries is hired to spring Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin.

Date of release
1985-10-18
TMDB
4.8 / 10 (36)
Runtime
2h 5m
Genres
Action, Thriller
Director
Peter R. Hunt
Collection
The Wild Geese Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

Wild Geese II is a 1985 British action-thriller film directed by Peter Hunt, based on the 1982 novel The Square Circle by Daniel Carney, in which a group of mercenaries are hired to spring Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin. The film is a sequel to the 1978 film The Wild Geese, which was also produced by Euan Lloyd and adapted from a novel by Carney. Richard Burton, who starred in the first film as Colonel Allen Faulkner, was planning to reprise his role, but died days before filming began. The sequel has Faulkner's brother Alex as one of the mercenaries. No characters from the original are featured in the sequel.

Production

The original film The Wild Geese had not been particularly popular in the US but performed better around the world. In April 1984, Richard Burton and Scott Glenn were announced as stars. Roger Moore was asked to reprise his role of Shawn Fynn from the first film but did not like the sequel's script.

Burton said that after making the film, he intended "to retire again for at least six months". In August 1984, a week before filming was to begin, Burton died of an intracerebral hemorrhage at his home in Geneva. Producer Euan Lloyd had just visited him: "He looked tan and healthy and had just passed his physical examination for the film after a nice holiday in Switzerland". Burton was replaced by Edward Fox.

In January 1985, Thorn EMI split the cost of a five-picture, £38 million slate of films they had made, including Dreamchild, A Passage to India, Morons from Outer Space, The Holcroft Covenant and Wild Geese 2.

The film opens with a dedication to Burton, followed by a brief summary of the previous film. Then-77-year-old Laurence Olivier, who portrayed Rudolf Hess, was in poor health during filming, requiring a nurse to accompany him during production. He was also beginning to suffer with memory problems. Edward Fox recalled him labouring for hours on his one long speech.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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